Wealthy seeking a wife ‘just want to sleep with you’

A WOMAN who took part in a matchmaking event where she was told she would be meeting wealthy men looking for a wife described her experience as “horrible.”

Tang Miaomiao told the Beijing News she believed many of the men were just looking for sex.

She met the CEO of a Beijing company, the newspaper reported yesterday, and at first, everything seemed to be going well with a pleasant chat over dinner at a nice restaurant. But things soon changed when he took out an expensive Cartier watch and offered it to her as a gift.

“The man said he was married, and started touching my hands. He said he could give me a Beetle car if I was willing to Ôaccompany’ him,” Tang said.

The suggestion that she should be his sexual partner in return for expensive gifts so appalled her that she grabbed a cup and smashed it on the floor. The CEO made a quick exit.

Tang told the newspaper that she had never taken part in a similar event since. “It is so disgusting because they just want to sleep with you,” she said.

The matchmaking industry in China is “chaotic,” a former agency worker told the paper.

She said a major part of her job was to find girlfriends for wealthy men who had an increasingly bizarre list of requirements. “They were required to be virgins and their height and breast, waist and hip sizes were strictly set,” said the woman who had worked in the industry for four years.

She said VIPs were charged up to 500,000 yuan (US$81,480) a year in membership fees.

She said much of her time was spend in seeking out beautiful girls on the street or online and choosing those most suitable for the matchmaking events.

The China Entrepreneurs’ Club for Singles recently held screening events that drew many hopeful women in Shanghai, Jinan, Nanning and Beijing. Sixty women who went through several rounds of interviews and checks were chosen from hundreds of applicants to meet 50 billionaires in the Maldives. The meetings were taking place at the weekend.

Women had to meet certain requirements which included age, height, looks, and, as some of the billionaires requested, they had to be virgins.

Interviews and checks included a session with a cosmetic surgeon to determine whether they were “natural” beauties. T arot cards played a part in the selection process and traditional Chinese medicine experts determined the state of their health. They also had to talk to a psychologist.

In some cases, their parents were also interviewed, and a face reader was hired to ensure their features signified good luck for future husbands.

Wu Changzhen, a professor of the China University of Political Science and Law, says such events were the reflection of a twisted concept of marriage, one that was money-oriented.